Metro chose not to make this report public. It took a formal request from this newspaper under the state open-records law request to obtain the report.

Nashvillians need to have confidence that our leadership is transparent and willing to accept criticism and deal with it forthrightly. If Mayor Karl Dean's administration is hiding this, what else is it hiding?

Metro's behavior is all the worse because it covers up Tennessee's No. 1 problem: domestic abuse. This city should be a beacon of responsibility, not a place where the protectors slink from their responsibilities.

Why did the city choose otherwise? Saul Solomon, head of the Metro Legal Department and chairman of the city's domestic-violence reform initiative, downplayed the accounts in the longer report as "unsubstantiated" and "anecdotal findings of what the support community came up with."

As it happens, the "anecdotal findings" (mostly detailed by victims' advocates) also paint a picture of an unresponsive and intimidating system in which officers, prosecutors, judges and other court officers blamed victims and excused the alleged abusers' behavior.

This is deplorable conduct for officials anywhere, maybe more so for a city administration that prides itself on being progressive.

That embarrassing portrait might explain why the report was shoved under the rug; that, and the fact that just a few short years ago, Metro police were stung by public condemnation for thousands of domestic violence cases being "cleared" from their books, often only because detectives could not reach the victims on the phone or by mail.

At the time, observers said it had to do with how then-Police Chief Ronal Serpas shifted department priorities to an emphasis on traffic stops. But an echo of that account cropped up with the newly surfaced report, in which it is alleged that police get more "points" from supervisors for traffic stops than for domestic arrests. Chief Steve Anderson denies the department has a points system.

There is a dedicated and principled Metro domestic-violence executive committee that has worked hard to improve to revamp the city's domestic-violence response, but it appears at least some of its members never received the 185-page report.

There is a credibility issue here, more from Metro than from the victims' advocates. As with Metro Legal's attempt to keep third-party records a secret in the Vanderbilt University rape case, we have reason to demand of Metro government that it shine a light on its decision-making. It does not have the right to keep such information from the public.

As for victims of domestic violence, they have enough to worry about without malfeasance from the officials whose job it is to help them.

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Metro's secrecy on domestic violence report is disservice to city

Metro's decision not to make public a report on domestic violence raises the question of what else Mayor Karl Dean's administration is hiding.